A long crawl from NYC back to the Hamptons yesterday on the Hampton Jitney allowed plenty of time to continue learning from Gary Taube, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories. I mentioned this scientific look at the history of current dietary recommendations and how most of them are not based on facts but rather on biased interpretations of the truth even in the face of new evidence, last month.

My point is not to slag anyone whose job it is to make health recommendations who chooses to stick with the status quo–people need their jobs after all and in this day and age it takes massive effort to effect change among the largest health organizations. Change is going to come though and I want to be a part of it. Speaking out about outdated science is my way of helping usher in the changes we so badly need in order to reverse the rates of heart disease and diabetes.

I’ve reported, as recently as yesterday, that there is no provable link between consumption of saturated fat and heart disease. A leading journal published the results of a meta-analysis supporting this claim. The same groups that advocate lowering saturated fat, increasing carbs and vegetable oils, claim that monounsaturated fat is the healthiest because they lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL.

Here’s a twist you would not have expected. As quoted from Taube’s book on page 168, “The majority of fat found in red meat, eggs and bacon is not saturated fat but the very same monounsaturated fat as in olive oil.” This information can be found by anyone at the USDA’s Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. (And you can get weekly audio emails with this kind of myth busting information by signing up for my Midlife Myth Busting Audio Postcards.)

Let’s stick with Taube as he dissects a porterhouse steak nutritionally–it’s compelling. “Consider a porterhouse steak with a quarter-inch layer of fat. After broiling, this steak will reduce to almost equal parts fat and protein. Fifty-one percent of the fat is monounsaturated, of which 90% is oleic acid. Saturated fat constitutes 45% of the total fat, but a third of that is stearic acid, which will increase HDL cholesterol while having no effect on LDL. The remaining 4% of the fat is polyunsaturated which lowers LDL but has no meaningful effect on HDL.” (HDL in case you’ve forgotten is the measure of total cholesterol we are encouraged to raise because it is health protective.)

“In sum,” Gary continues, “perhaps as much as 70% of the fat content of a porterhouse steak will improve the relative levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol, compared with what they would be if carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed.”

So what to do? Limit vegetable oils with the exception of olive oil, flax seed oil, coconut and avocado oils. Eat plenty of plants and include plenty of organic, farm raised meats, wild fish, cage free eggs high in Omega 3s, and limit sugar–including the foods that turn quickly into sugar in the digestive system. And keep an open mind to new discoveries and the possibility that there are mighty forces in place who rely on the status quo to please their share holders. I’ve said it before, I’m not a conspiracy theorist and the links are obvious once you start looking.

Speaking of sugar I’m going to do a series of posts on just how big a player this one, ubiquitous substance is in the creation of lifestyle diseases and how you can have a sweet life without deprivation.

You might want to read this then. For some time I’ve been hearing squeaks from alternative practitioners that canola oil is not a good for you monounsaturated, flavor neutral, (I don’t like the flavor at all), all purpose oil.

After catching up with both sides of the debate, which included reading Dr. Fred Pescatore’s article “The Real Story on Canola Oil (“Can-Ugly Oil”). If you are not familiar with Dr. Pescatore, he wrote The Hamptons Diet described on his website as, “The Hamptons Diet takes the best of the Mediterranean Diet and the best of controlled carbohydrate eating and puts them together in the context of whole foods (organic whenever possible), minimally processed, nothing artificial, and with minimal use of sugar alcohols.” He also educates about monounsaturated fats, the right balance of Omega 6 – to Omega 3 fatty acids, and overall health vs weight loss.

In addition to Dr. Pescatore’s work, Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon have written copious articles and books on the subject of safe and healthy fats vs the unhealthy ones, including the one you can link to above titled, The Great Con-Ola. You might be surprised to know that they have reams of proof to back up the idea that saturated fat does not kill people. And that using only monounsaturated fats with no saturates–such as those found in meat, eggs, coconut–is not only unnatural but it’s causing health problems.

Listen, canola oil–or Canadian oil, so named for the Canadian scientist who first brought it to the public eye–is a highly processed, non-nutritive version of a natural oil used for many hundreds of years in Asian countries. The modern version has too high a smoke point and as such becomes toxic with trans fats when used for sauteeing or frying. Oh, and did I say it comes with more trans fat than margarine? According to Jonny Bowden in The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, the Omega 3s in canola oil–usually a healthy thing–”become rancid and foul-smelling when subjected to the high temperatures needed to extract the oil. Therefore they have to be deodorized. The deodorizing process turns a large number of the omega-3 fatty acids into trans fats.”

He goes on to site a study from the U at Gainsville Florida which found trans fat levels as high as 4.6% in commercial canola oil, even more than margarine.

Then there is the genetically modified aspect. Rape seed, from which we get canola oil, was originally genetically modified  to lower the amount of something called erucic acid, a fatty acid that has potentially dangerous heart health implications. With the help of Monsanto it has continued through more GM permutations to make it more commercially viable which means less healthy.

So I ask you? What’s healthy about this oil? Producing a cheap alternative to olive oil and hiring the best marketers over the years has allowed the food industry–with help from the mega empire of evil Monsanto–to put a healthy spin on a mega profitable unhealthy product.

After probably years of eating products with this unsafe oil and pouring it on salads and into muffin recipes it’s time to stop. Replace canola oil with coconut, olive, nut oils, butter, ghee etc. Found in nature, processed minimally, ahh, now that does a body good!